


A Certain Kind of Eden

by Blucifer



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: A love story told through fairy bread, Age Difference, Aged-Up Character(s), Anal Sex, Falling In Love, First Time, Future Fic, M/M, Multiple Selves, Oral Sex, Soulmates, The devil is in the details, Time Loop, beefbin/3xl shirt lover chan, domestic melancholy, over and over again, pls don't question the mechanics of the time loop just enjoy the porn, repeated mistakes, swole chan/stringbean bin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blucifer/pseuds/Blucifer
Summary: Chan is the man who stands before him now, broad shoulders and compact muscle. Chan is boy who wears shirts several sizes too large, and is too embarrassed to look him in the eye when he touches him, it’s unmistakable. Chan is days ago, and Chan is years ago. Chan is a smile, a delicate mixture of embarrassment and coquettish. Chan is sparkling eyes, transfixed upon him as if he were the only person in the world. Identical. “How many times? How many times are we gonna do this Chan?"Or: Changbin and Chan fall in love with each other over, and over, and over again.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Seo Changbin
Comments: 32
Kudos: 117





	1. Chapter 1

**The First and the Third**

Black card rests in his pocket. He popped tags before he left the house. He’s got reservations with his father tonight at a restaurant up town with a couple of Michelin stars behind its name. Changbin isn’t the kind of person allowed to acknowledge sorrow. So when it coats the inside of his heart, drips downward, and pools in his stomach like the legs of a wine aged in malcontent, it’s not the kind of thing that’s taken seriously.

All he knows is that for a brief moment, when he’s here, he can summon those thoughts, blue veined and vulnerable, let them linger in his mind without the uncontrolled desire to stomp them back down, and surrender them completely.

Unlike when he writes them down into his black moleskin with drying Bic pen, he doesn’t feel compelled to dredge them back out, and pound them with the obtuse tools that he’s been given, his voice and his mind, into something resembling music.

Unlike when he tries to articulate these words to someone else, whether they be his mother or his friends, there’s no dealing with the aftermath. There’s no forced acknowledgement that even though their words fall short and feel hollow, they truly do love him anyway.

All he knows is that when he was younger, his grandmother, thick rural satori and hunched little shoulders, so different from other women that he’s always known, would walk him through this space on his way to school.

In this place, an alleyway meets an apartment complex courtyard and a parking lot overgrown with weeds. Somewhere nestled in between is a small grotto, made of carved stone, and dedicated the Korean martyrs. His grandmother would pause here, not every morning, but some mornings. While she used this time to pray, he tittered on about whatever important things that children talk of: school, and his friends, and wanting ice cream.

Back then, he never quite respected, never quite understood, what it was that she was doing. After all, this wasn’t like the cold pews of Church where he was shushed incessantly. This was a place between recess at school and afternoon cartoons at home.

Now, he searches for something that he never had in the first place. Wouldn’t it be nice to articulate these emotions, raw, unrefined, and ugly, to someone who could mold them into something more palatable? Have them handed back to him in better condition than they were before with little expectation in return?

With his eyes closed, he can feel every beat of his heart, every rise and every fall of his chest with an almost painful precision. His lungs burn from the cold. His heart races and evens, at the mercy of his own fleeting emotion which flutters between indifferent and anxious with each passing breath.

He can feel the distinct burn at the base of his spine where the eyes of another burn into the thick fabric of his coat.

He’d always had the sneaking suspicion that this particular shrine was on private property. That feeling of being watched is probably brought on by someone glowering at him through the blinds. Better wrap up this sappy shit.

From his pocket, he extracts a worn smooth piece of lacquer, no bigger than a domino. Once upon a time, it used to have a carving of the virgin. Whether it was purchased at one of the grand cathedrals in Jeonju or Daegu, or at a dollar store here in the city for a few hundred won, he’ll never know.

Standing upon his tip toes, he reaches up to hook the keyring onto one of the nails that poke out from the wooden beams. Unlike the clack of rosary beads, or a compulsory tithe, this offering has meaning. But it’s just out of reach, and the ring won’t hook. And while he furrows his brow in frustration, extends his toes until they ache, and finally gets the icon to stick, the rest of his body is abandoned to the whims of gravity.

Falling backwards, until he’s interrupted. Strong hands grab onto his bicep, prop him back upright. “You good?”

Changbin is pushed upright by a man with a genuine, almost overwhelming smile and a pair of cheeks, ruddy red from the cold. His eyes remain unseen, because that’s how large his smile is.

“Yeah, thanks.” Changbin’s skin glows warm from where the stranger’s touch lingers upon his bicep. It’s only then that he notices the skintight runners leggings, and the way that sweat beads at his temple. He doesn’t shy away from Changbin’s shameless, hungry and un-shielded gaze. Not for a second.

“You’re missing someone today.” The smile softens. Honeyed brown eyes tinged with concern are revealed to Changbin when this happens.

He almost feels guilty, for making that smile slip away.

Whatever response he may have had, dries up on his tongue. What’s left is the dry feeling of his throat constricting around nothing.

It’s painful.

“Sorry,” the stranger responds to his silent and aborted response. He lets go of Changbin, but his skin still burns. “That was a bit forward. It’s just. You remind me of someone I know.”

“It’s okay I guess,” Changbin says for lack of anything else to really say.

The stranger goes through the motions, making the sign of the cross and lowering his eyes in reverence.

Changbin feels bolted in place. He’s never, not once in eighteen years seen another person visit the grotto.

They don’t speak to one another again until the wind sweeps back their hair, and chaps their faces. Until he stands with his elbows propped against the guardrail that keeps vandals from walking into the monument and smashing the statues. Until the stranger is done praying and stands in the opposite direction, elbows propped on that same guardrail, only mirrored. His back is turned so that he looks into the wholly un-glorious sight that is the alleyway, overturned trash bins and parked cars. With the autumn wind howling, it’s difficult to be heard. Changbin yells what he would not even so much as want to whisper, “yeah, I’m missing someone.”

“Who?”

Quieter now, so that it might be swallowed up by the wind. “My grandmother. Except it’s been like five fucking years--”

The stranger nods, like the rest doesn’t need to be said.

“I guess it’s just that she was the only one in my messed up family that I liked.” Silence has never bothered him before. Silence didn’t bother him moments ago when they walked for miles and miles through the city. Now it does. “Now that I’ve told you my sob story, I’m Changbin by the way.”

The stranger’s expression changes again. From dead serious to that of relief. Like he’s just found his keys after tearing apart his apartment. Like he’s just dashed up the gate a few minutes before takeoff. Like even though it happened by chance, he’s so glad that he ran into Changbin. “I’m Chan.”

“You missin’ someone too? People don’t ask other people that kind of thing unless they’re thinking it themselves. Unless they wanna talk about it themselves.”

“I couldn’t just be really, really empathetic?” But because he doesn’t deny it, “Yeah, I’m missing someone.” He says it’s like it’s painful. Like a stab between the seventh and eighth ribs.

“Who?”

“By your logic, you’re doing this so you can talk more about your grandma,” Chan notes. “But, I think I miss the person you remind me of.”

It’s too close, and it’s too personal, and his ears burn under tender scrutiny. “I bet he’s really, really good looking. That’s why I remind you of him.”

“Oh. Well, he believed he was really charming.”

The “like you” is implied.

And even though he wants to push him way he keeps talking despite the fact that he has nothing else to say. “If you miss him, and I remind you of him, you should probably try to keep me around, huh?”

It’s nothing really. Changbin looks at him and sees opportunity. He’s got an exam prep course at 9, and a perfect attendance record that’s begging to be shattered against the glass. Changbin looks at him and sees the ice cream that somehow makes it into the shopping basket when he just needs bread. The extra item thrown into the shopping cart for the sole purpose of free shipping. Something he didn’t even know that he wanted, but desperately feels like he needs.

“Sure.”

* * *

In theory, bring your own vinyl night was supposed to be the modern-day Socratic seminar. BYOV (bring your own vinyl) was place where not only students learn from masters, but masters from students. Debates such as Minutemen versus Descendants had no true right or wrong answers, just arguments weaved through A sides and B sides. Exploratory. Because before there were algorithms, and before there was unlimited streaming, so he’s told at least by his father, there was you, your friends, and a crate full of records.

Too bad hipsters in a coffee shop can turn this ancient, higher form of learning into a real like YouTube comment section. 

_Freebird_ gets played without fail, and at what level of abstraction no one is really certain. Some guy in a Joy Division t-shirt trash talks New Order because he doesn’t even know. Everybody hates on U2 while ignoring their good stuff, and all Chan wants to do is spin a song that he’s pretty sure everyone will love, and hasn’t heard in forever.

Needless to say, he doesn’t particularly like BYOV but he needs access to a turntable like yesterday. Needs a distraction like he needs to breathe. This is one of the few places other than school or the company practice rooms that he can go, alone, without raising suspicion. No smoking, no booze, hell they don’t even serve meat.

Cause it’s the third week in a row where he waited in line at the trainee dorms for a public phone. Held the plastic international phone call between his fingers and tapped it on the side of the phone booth.

Yeah. One of the most modern buildings in Seoul is also one of the last places on the planet with honest to god phone booths.

Third week in a row where it’s rang, and it’s rang, and it’s rang, and gone right to voicemail.

Cause he doesn’t even want to know how many consecutive months it’s been. How many evaluations have gone by with no feedback other than, “satisfactory?” It’s not a dream, because he knows what he needs to do in order to get there. It’s not a goal, because even if he follows those steps and holds onto the handrail, it doesn’t guarantee he’s going to get to the top. It’s something unwieldy and in-between and the answers that he keeps getting, “satisfactory,” are so unsatisfactory. In or out of reach, he never quite knows if the pendulum has swung more so in one direction than the other.

Chan approaches the DJ. Brand new Audio Technica turntable plugged into a Mac Book pro is sprawled out on the large, splintered dinner table that occupies the back of the shop. A piece of lined notebook paper is taped to the peeling varnish. Written upon it in sloppy scrawl, “ _No Journey or Morrisey (they suck). No Portishead (personal reasons).”_

“Hey,” Chan taps the worn cardboard record sleeve against a large stack of records. The attendant doesn’t look at him right away. Blue light reflected in his glassy eyes, he stares at the screen with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“You can, doesn’t mean I’ll like it.”

See? Pissing contest.

“I like it,” Chan offers his _Iron Butterfly_ album. “And I have pretty excellent taste.”

The attendant looks up from his screen and makes eye-contact. Parted lips fall slack as he stares at Chan as if he had a second head. And it would be so easy to pass off as disdain for the song that he wants to hear, but the DJ hasn’t even looked at the album yet.

And after being assaulted by his scrutinous gaze, he finally bothers to look at the album in his hand. “You want me to play a seventeen-minute song?”

“Personal reasons.” 

“Can’t argue with that,” at that, he takes the record sleeve from him, pulls out the record, and flips the disk in his hand so that the A side faces up. Swaps out _A Tribe Called Quest_ for _Iron Butterfly._ “But, after that, I’m putting on the longest _Yes_ song I can find, and we’re going to make everyone here miserable.”

“That’s what you’re gonna use make everyone miserable? You have better options.” Chan pokes at a faded, cartoon covered copy of _Chipmunk Punk._

“That’s a classic, and I use it to clear out the place at close.”

Heavy guitar rips through the coffee shop. The stranger only cranks it up louder. Demanding attention, the sound fills up every empty seat and rattles the artwork on the wall. Suddenly, the idea of pulling out his laptop and working on the paper he’s got due in the morning seems even less interesting than it had before he struck up this particular vein of conversation.

“You should let me buy you a drink.”

Brian had always told him that he’d just kind of _know._ In this moment, he _knows._ Asymmetrical grin, and unwavering eyes that seem to take in every detail.

Heat rushes to his cheeks, and his voice cracks, but he’ll be damned if that’s going to stop him from trying. Not when he _knows._ “You do that to everybody? Say you’ll play their long songs so they have to say yes to a coffee date while you’ve got their record?”

“Just the cute ones.”

His blush only runs deeper, and hotter, creeping up into the shell of his ears when the stranger pats him patronizingly on the shoulder as he rises and approaches the bar.

The barista smiles as they approach the counter. “Hey Changbin, thanks for doing this tonight.”

Changbin. Oh. They hadn’t even exchanged names yet, but rapid fire flirting was somehow more than okay.

“Well you know. If Jisung’s sick with the clap, I’m more than happy to help out.”

“I think it’s just the flu.”

“Anyway, my friend, you have no idea how grateful you’re about to be. I’m just playing my own stuff, and not taking suggestions.” He steals a quick glance at Chan. “Maybe one or two suggestions. The important part is that you don’t have to listen to Journey at all.”

“I like Journey actually--” the barista interrupts. “You want the usual?”

Changbin insists, “Yeah, my usual, and steamed almond milk for him.”

“Wait, what?” How the hell does this guy know his order? He always gets looked at like he’s grown a second head when he goes out and orders that.

“I mean,” Changbin cuts in suddenly. “Get whatever you want. It’s just that, the cute ones always have weird orders.”

“I mean that’s exactly what I want,” he responds. Then, speaking to the barista, “with sugar free vanilla syrup in it. Like a lot, like three or four pumps.”

“See, I told you.” Whatever color that hinted upon his cheeks blossoms into a full crimson red now. But the thing is, Changbin’s face is equally flushed red, for reasons that Chan doesn’t quite understand.

“I can’t have caffeine. Seriously. It makes my chest hurt! I went to the doctor and everything because I thought I was dying.”

The barista interrupts, “Here you go Binnie. One usual. Double americano, extra water, extra raspberry syrup”

“That’s disgusting.” Chan almost makes it to the delivery before he interrupts himself with sheepish laughter. “But why that order? You’re not that cute.”

“Oh. A funny guy.” Changbin responds taking a satisfied sip of his drink. “What’s your name?”

“Chris. Well, everyone calls me Chan.”

“Well Chan come sit with me by the rig.” The heat of the warm milk warms the tips of his fingers. Didn’t even notice that he’d felt icy cold until now. “After all, I’ve got you held captive as my date for the next,” gives the clock on his phone a cursory glance. “What, thirteen minutes?”

His mouth feels scratchy when he speaks, “yeah.”

“So it’s personal huh?” Changbin asks, referring to the song while kicking a chair out from underneath the table with his foot because, as he insists, “he’s a gentleman.”

“Yeah.” It’s no different than the dorm. He’s here with this guy Changbin right now. Might see him again if he comes back to the shop, but the very real possibility exists that he’s never going to see him again. And they’re having this experience, and it’s visceral, and it’s real, and it’s personal, and it’s fleeting and not longstanding.

He’s had a lot of those. His roommate of two and a half years bared his soul to him and told him that his girlfriend was pregnant. Just yesterday, Chan found out that he packed up and went back to Ilsan without so much as a word. So many moments of unspeakable intimacy are stored in his memory, stack on top of one another, and lose their luster. Chan has become a dragon upon a throne of shining metal coins. None of them catch his eye, because he’s never been the _right_ person to bare their soul too, just the one that’s available.

Maybe the coin has flipped. Maybe he’s doing that to Changbin right now. “Too direct?” Changbin asks. “Sorry.”

He doesn’t know him at all, but he doesn’t feel afraid of being vulnerable.

“No, it’s alright. My dad. He got me into stuff like this.” Chan takes a sip of his drink. “I can’t always see him when I want. I can’t even play the record when I want. Like,” does that sound too weird? No, this guy spins records in coffee shops. “When it’s on my phone it’s different.”

“You’re here from somewhere else?”

“Yeah, Australia.”

“School?”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh,” Changbin cracks a smile. “Should’ve guessed. The hair. The clothes. The smile. You wanna be a poster on every thirteen-year-old girl’s wall.”

“No!” He responds too quickly, to pitchy, too on the nose. “I mean. I like it. Dancing. Music. Twelve step skincare routines.”

“There’s no shame in it.”

Something about it makes his skin feel clammy and his chest tight. True vulnerability makes him feel sick. Because in moments like this, you never know if you’re about to get cut down just so the other guy can stand an inch or two taller in the rubble. “Who’s Portishead, and what did they do to you?”

But the blow never comes. Changbin takes a long draught of coffee. Wets his lips with his tongue before he speaks, “we’re gonna need a lot longer than a couple of prog rock albums for that one.”

* * *

“This place looks like in the movies.” Changbin sits at a bar that divides a microscopic kitchenette from an equally microscopic living room on a bar stool that’s designed for someone a whole lot taller than he is. His sock-clad feet don’t hit the wooden rungs right at all, and it feels like he’s falling. And as he slides into refectory free-fall, he watches Chan from the other side attend egg whites in a pan.

His apartment is on the ground floor of one of the buildings that are steps away from the grotto.

“What kind of movies? The boring kind?”

“Maybe not the movies. Maybe a drama. The kind set in the 80s or 90s for the sole purpose of having a scene where a cute girl is talking on one of those big clunky phones with a curly cord.” Changbin says this as he thinks about the giant stainless-steel appliances in his parents’ apartment, and compares them to the time yellowed fridge and stove in Chan’s. They so tiny, almost look like doll furniture. “Kind of normal, in the way that nothing’s ever _that_ normal.”

“Hm,” Chan hums in agreement, poking at the food with a silicone spatula. Faint smile dusted onto his expression. “So that means it’s weird.”

“Maybe,” his voice trails off as he watches Chan cook.

Chan adds in spinach to the omelet, and cracked pepper, the kind that comes in a tiny glass grinder that you throw away when the pepper is gone completely.

For whatever reason, the stove cranked high, or the old timey radiator heat, or the shock of coming in from the cold, Changbin feels very hot. It’s the kind of heat that starts with flush cheeks and grows into blotchy patches of red on the chest. The kind that makes the stomach flutter, but he dare not call it nausea. Instead of asking for Chan to crack a window, or turn down the heater, he asks for something that will only make him feel hotter, his chest beat faster. “Do you have any coffee?” A bad habit that he started when he enrolled in entrance exam prep classes that started at 6:30 in the morning.

“No, caffeine makes me sick,” Chan responds. “I have juice. Or almond milk. Sorry, it’s been awhile since I’ve made a guy breakfast.” It rolls off of the tongue so easily, but by the end of the sentence, mortification takes over his warm expression, as if he knows that he’s made a mistake.

“So it’s like that huh?” Changbin responds.

“Like what?”

“The person I remind you of?” It’s kind of weird. How someone who can get him to bare his soul to him upon first meeting, can be awkward as hell? Weird, how he can’t tell if the spark that exists between them is going to be easily extinguished in the early morning dew or catch fire.

“Coffee stunts your growth,” Chan responds dryly as he flips the omelet in the pan and serves it to him on a blue and white plate.

“It’s really okay to think that I’m cute hyung.” With one hand, Changbin nonchalantly flips him off, middle finger pressed to his brow. With the other, he blows him a kiss across the counter. “Because I really am.”

“You’re a menace.” Chan reaches over the counter, and musses his hair. His wide palm dragging down the thick fabric of his beanie temporarily shielding him from Chan’s smile.

“I’m a cute menace.”

Chan makes his own omelet and puts it onto a mismatched green and white plate. Then, he sits next to Changbin at the bar.

“You didn’t ask me if I wanted mushrooms in mine,” he says looking at Chan’s food, just to be contrary.

“You don’t like mushrooms.” Chan responds simply, as if he already knows.

Weird.

* * *

Talking to each other is easy as they sit at the dining room table turned mix-and-match coffee shop furniture altar. Top knot hipsters and expats that can’t speak a word of Korean interrupt on occasion to make offerings of Chaka Khan and Peter Gabriel. Changbin accepts these offerings.

He asks Changbin what it is that he does for a living. Changbin responds honestly and with an all too pleased grin, “I’m a trust fund baby. Sometimes, I go to work.”

Changbin quizzes him on everything modern and hip in Seoul. What clubs that he likes, and what clubs that he doesn’t. Chan responds, “Soap Soul, and Madholic, but it’s not as good as it used to be.”

“Don’t get me started,” _In Da Gadda Da Vida_ finally ends. True to his word, Changbin ignores throws on _Yes._ “Did you ever go there when Madholic _used_ to be Octagon Club”

Chan shakes his head, “no.”

“Well it rocked. Ever since they got bought out it’s been downhill.”

On and on like this, until their coffee cups are empty. Until Chan buys them bagels and the barista clears away empty plates. Until the high pitched wailing of _Alvin and The Chipmunk’s_ cover of _Let’s Go_ by the Cars cuts over the speaker and signifies closing time. “Ah, is it time to go already?” He’s probably annoyed the shit out of this guy, they’ve been talking for four hours. Although, if that were true, he seems like the kind of person who would at least be straight forward enough to say it.

“We can walk to the train together.”

“You’re a trust fund baby, and you take public transit?”

“All the money in the world can’t fix the fact that I’m terrified of driving.”

With the warm autumn sun tucked away for the night, it’s cold outside. Immediately that cold bites at the backs of Chan’s ears and the tip of his nose, even though he stuffs his beanie on over his head, and zips up the collar on his pullover as quickly as possible.

Scan their passes and pop through the turnstile. It’s juvenile, but if it’s going to work, it’d work on someone like him. “Here,” Chan hands him a single Air pod.

“Oh,” Changbin puts the earpiece into his ear. “Romantic.”

The train is crowded. Their bodies are pressed close enough for Changbin to fit into him perfectly. His back into Chan’s chest. He’s jammed himself into a crowded train almost every day for years and years. Only now does it feel claustrophobic. “You can pick something,” Chan offers, wrapping his arm around Changbin’s middle and handing him his phone.

In one ear, he hears the steady chug of the train. Girls dressed to the nines and ready for a night out on the town chirp at one another in giggles and squeals. In the other ear, Changbin tells him a secret, or at least part of a secret. Slow. Melodic. Dirty. Changbin plays _Glorybox_ by Portishead and lets it fade into _Sour Times_ as they scan their transit passes and get onto the train.

“You should give me your number too,” Chan speaks softly into his ear, and hopes that it sounds sexy.

“Wow,” Changbin doesn’t miss a beat. He enters his contact information with four heart emojis in front of his name, and four heart emojis after. “You really wanna get out of that shitty dorm huh?”

* * *

Changbin is the one last beer at final call. The extra slice of pizza when your eyes are bigger than your stomach. The quarter in the bottom of the cup holder that didn’t get fed into the meter, because it wouldn’t be that long.

That is to say, Chan knows better.

Why do anything if you _know better?_

But It’s like this. The future is like the salesman who works on commission only. The future is crouched just on the other side of the mall kiosk. Impossibly close, but so well concealed that it catches Chan by surprise each and every single time.

All Chan knows is that it feels good in the moment, and regret is for the future even if the future is seconds from now.

He’s cute.

In like a lost puppy kind of way.

The question becomes, _how many times?_ How many times will he tell himself that he _knows better?_

When he gets a text at an hour long past decent, the answer is at least one more time.

_“Are you awake?” 00:42_

Chan knows that nothing particularly good can come from such a message at this time of night. But he’s so intimately familiar with the feeling of needing someone while the whole world sleeps.

_“Yeah,” 00:44_

_“Can I come over?” 00:44_

_“Yeah. The keycode to the apartment is 654321” 00:45_

_“Holy shit, you are gonna get murdered.”_ And then a double text, _“I’ll be right there.” 00:45_

“I usually keep that around for my friend W—” Twenty minutes later, the door to his apartment clicks open. Changbin’s skin is rubbed red from the wind. Because Chan knows better, and because Changbin is looking for trouble, it takes him seconds to find the whole twelve ounces of liquor in his apartment. A single, probably flat, Cass beer left over from visits that were supposed to be more frequent, but the trappings of adulthood made so few and far between.

“So I’m at Octagon Club for open mic, and there’s whispers, threads of bullshit of course, that there are record label reps in the audience.” Changbin takes a long draught of the beer, grimaces, and then takes another swig. “And that’s like normal. Normal for open mic.”

“You’re not even old eno—” It’s not like he doesn’t have a plethora of fond memories of sneaking into the club underage.

“And like, it’s no big fucking deal. I’ve been rejected like twelve times by six different companies. Actually,” another long drink, and Chan can tell that he’s in for a very long night. Another long drink, on top of the last, and it becomes clear to Chan that this might not be Changbin’s first drink tonight. “It’s my goal to get rejected by every single company in Seoul. I’ve burned through the big ones, but you know I’m a repeat offender. If I get rejected by everyone, I’ll have no choice, but to do what my parents say. Finish school and work real hard and--”

“How’s that working out?” Chan pulls some almond milk from the fridge and manages to find a half bottle of peach soju in the back of the fridge behind his water pitcher and a half empty container of leftover wonton soup. Why the hell not? He puts it onto the bar for Changbin to “find” next to the open package of coconut chips on the counter and the open bag of clementine oranges.

“Oh, let me tell you.” By now, Changbin’s cheeks are flushed red, the rest of his skin ghostly pale. “I’ll catch a couple auditions in a row, and then I don’t know my parents will make me feel guilty or whatever, so I fuck up real bad, and just go back to trying to do what they say for awhile.”

“So, what happened tonight Changbin?” Almond milk in the pan, just for the sake of something opposite flat Cass beer and stale tasting soju.

“I’ll tell you what happened. I fucking choked.”

And Chan feels for him, he really does. Once he found himself in the industry, he never wanted to be the kind of person who believed that blood had to be exchanged for happiness. “So, what are you gonna do about it?”

“Well, what I need.” Now the beer can is empty. He slams it onto the counter. Then, with all the finesse of someone whose hands had been replaced by large Easter hams, Changbin tucks into his bag of dried coconut with flakes flying. “Is an industry daddy.” He says looking at Chan expectantly. “To like, you know. Help me figure this shit out. Since you’re like, Mr. Cool producer.”

“Whatever you say baby.” And without skipping a beat, Chan pours the almond milk in the pan into his favorite travel mug.

The clink of bright green glass fumbled against the counter, Changbin’s chagrin, shouldn’t be so satisfying. But, it absolutely is. Days and days of coy flirtation between them, it wafts back and fourth with the cool autumn breeze from intentional, unbridled teenage desire and wholly innocent. 

He’s finally made Changbin feel just as confused and displaced.

He should know better than to do that.

“What did you do Chan?” Chan’s never brought it up to Changbin before, but it’s not really a secret when it’s plastered all over his Instagram and Twitter. The specifics remain tightly wound. Because once the past starts to unravel, one frayed thread quickly becomes two. Two becomes three, until there’s nothing left beyond a shapeless ball of matted twine.

“Because like, I can’t even land an unpaid internship bringing people like you coffee. Or almond milk. Or whatever the fuck.”

Changbin tugs at the collar of his pullover. T-shirt adhered to the static laden fabric, he exposes a long swath of skin from his hips to his chest. Peeling the pullover away, the t-shirt falls back down quickly, hiding the skin as quickly as it was exposed.

Changbin becomes a real-life version of what he’s gotten in his DMs the past few days. Gone are the filters that repackages Changbin’s visage in increasingly distorted ways. Cat ears, and rabbit ears, and flower crowns. At first, it seemed that the further he got from Changbin the bolder Changbin became. Face shots with no background, and then very clearly images of him laying in bed, body shots with his shirt rucked up, but no more than the smallest swaths of skin exposed.

Changbin doesn’t even know that it doesn’t matter. Not one bit. Chan’s drawn to him now for reasons that are buried in the debris laden past. The Changbin before him, very much warm flesh and blood is just another filter through which he can experience his memories that don’t even feel real.

At the end of it all, Chan’s just a moth throwing himself into a twelve hour fireplace loop on Youtube, broadcast through a high definition plasma screen.

“Even better, you’ve got someone like me letting you pilfer my fridge.” Chan wonders, even if he had the power to stop it, would he? “Well, I left home when I was really young. Trained for six years and.”

Changbin’s mouth has fallen open now as he watches Chan speak with rapt fascination. It’s dangerous, the way that he believes that he may have answers for him.

“Debuted. Put out like three albums.”

“Wait, really?” Changbin’s eyes go glassy-wide in drunk wonder. Instead of the usual questions like, “what group?” and “what happened?” he spares him the salt in the wound, grabbing for his phone and searching. 

Changbin silently mouths the words to himself as he reads on and on until he misses syllables, and then his jaw falls slack. Chan, is morbidly curious if he’s looking at his Wikipedia page, or his Fandomwiki page, or one of the half dozen kpop blog posts that pop up whenever you Google his name. What does it say and how will he explain any of this to Changbin? “Holy fuck.”

But Changbin doesn't ask why he's listed on a wikipedia page for a group that hasn't even debuted. None of this makes sense, but he presses onward. “So what are you gonna do Changbin?”

“I think,” Changbin’s words are like the mixture of flat beer, open soju, and whatever else he’d drank at the club, a slurred volatile mixture on his tongue. “everyone around me, at least my parents anyway, would like me to believe that giving up is a part of growing up. Not just my parents, those guys at the record labels. Those guys who are like thirty at open mic night who think they’re so fucking great because they won a rap battle or something.” He quickly adds, “sorry.”

“First of all, I’m twenty-eight, and I haven’t been to an open mic in years. Second, that’s a really sad way of looking at it. You’re allowed to change things as you go along, but you never really answered the question.”

“There’s an open audition tomorrow. I’m gonna go.”

* * *

“Don’t you have a curfew or something?” Changbin tries to muster is best look of displeasure, but it absolutely doesn’t last.

“Not after you turn 18.” Chan says as he shuffles out of his shoes.

“So what, in like six months it won’t be sneaking out anymore?”

“I am almost twenty--Wait, what’s this?” God damn it. Chan’s been in his house all of two seconds and he’s beelined towards a framed poster on the wall, and the shelf underneath it. Sad, with a generous portion of pathetic, Changbin maintains a small shrine of a former life in the corner of his living room right next to the Bruce Lee and Marvel posters, framed now of course, because he’s an adult and he can afford it. Maybe this is the kick in the ass that he needs to finally take _that_ shit down and put up the prints he bought off of Etsy in the throes of a quarter life crisis a few months ago. “You were a boy on posters!” Chan says throwing his words back at him.

“Yeah.” It’s not something that Changbin wants to hide, at least not anymore. He’s had enough time to realize that it takes more energy to be embarrassed than it does to let it roll off of his shoulder. And, most people don’t really care anyway.

“Trigger? I have never heard of them,” Chan busies himself by plucking a stack of photo cards (all of him, of course) off of the shelf and flips through them. A few cards into the stack, horror spreads across his face, as if he’d just realized he’d misspoke. “Oh god. That sounded incredibly rude. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Changbin responds. “It’s a really common response.”

What the fuck would happen if he had his albums out here? Photo books and full group posters? Would both of them just melt or fade away like in the movies?

“What happened? Like it’s pretty obvious that you’re older than me--”

“Now _that’s_ rude.”

“Ok, I mean like, you don’t seem that much older. To be out of the game completely. Oh--” Changbin already knows which card Chan has, just based on reaction alone. There’s one particularly flattering one where he’s tongue fucking a lollypop underneath a graffiti’d highway overpass, and boy does Changbin ever want to jump out of the living room window right now.

“The usual reasons. Company had no money. Group made no money. Bored teenagers kick up a good old-fashioned scandal. Less money.”

“Oh,” Chan goes quiet now. Stops flipping through cards.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he cuts in before obligatory and hollow _I’m sorry_ happens. Because it’s not. “I mean. It used to be, but I have had time to put it in it’s place. You know?”

“This is usually the part where you’d tell me I shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t what?” Changbin’s moved into the kitchenette to make himself a slice of toast. Whenever he’s confronted with the fact that he’s learned absolutely nothing at all from his past actions, he gets stupidly hungry. He should just order takeout now. A large number six combo and an extra order of dumplings.

Plus whatever his ~~current~~ past? Mistake wants to eat.

Chan follows him around the apartment like a lost puppy, and he’s almost stepped on his toes three times in the course of fifteen steps back and forth across the kitchenette. “You want one?”

“Yeah I want some. Keep trying to debut.”

“Why would I do that?” Changbin deadpans. Two pieces of wheat bread interrupt, popping up out of the toaster slots. Changbin fishes them out with the fork he keeps right by the toaster for this purpose.

“No! What are you doing?”

“Getting the toast?”

“You could electrocute yourself that way!”

“Oh wow. I should’ve died years ago.” Changbin puts both slices of bread onto the same plate. Spreads them with a thin layer of Nutella. “Sprinkles?”

“What?”

Oh fuck. It’s just like the almond milk thing. Is this something they should talk about? Whatever, he’s just gonna roll with it. Changbin shakes a little bottle of rainbow sprinkles at Chan. Other than a few hot sauce packets that live in the butter shelf in his fridge, it’s the closest thing to seasoning that he actually owns. “You know what? Just try it,” before dumping a generous amount of sprinkles onto the bread.

“It just seems like maybe you had a really rough experience. Maybe I’m just projecting my self doubt, and looking for someone to confirm it. Or maybe I’m just looking for the opposite. Maybe I just want more blind encouragement, even though I know that when people do that, it’s mostly hollow.”

“Channie,” Changbin closes the half step’s distance between them, reaches upward, and tousles his hair. “Stop sounding more mature than hyung. After all, I only chase after younger guys so I don’t feel so immature.” 

The blush that blossoms across Chan’s face is immediate and vibrant. Suddenly, he finds the checkered vinyl floor, and their sock clad feet very interesting to look at.

Changbin reaches back behind Chan to the counter behind them, plucking his kettle off the counter. Leaving Chan with his own embarrassment, he fills it with water and places it upon the stove, then goes to fill his French Press with grounds.

“This is weird.” Chan says, wedge of toast in hand.

“No it isn’t.” Yes it is.

“No, I mean, this is a thing from back home. I’ve not seen it here before. Little kids eat it at birthday parties and stuff.”

“Yeah?” it hurts, not just in the way that sugar hits your gut full force and makes you feel like you’ve just consumed a rock. Not just in the way that junk food and alcohol gives him heartburn these days, but he indulges anyway. The pain is elevated, ever so slightly, settled just to the left over his heart.

It’s not purposeful, and he’s not trying to recreate something that’s been long out of touch. Automatic, the imprint that’s been left upon him. “It’s something my group mate used to make me on my birthday.”

Chan takes a tentative nibble. “Sweet.”

“Like me.”

For a moment, they stand in the kitchen in silence across from each other at parallel rows of faux marble counter top. The soft _crunch_ of toasted bread becomes almost deafening. Chan steals furtive glances at him, the kind that comes with equal parts infatuation and need for affection, offered and felt with the whole heart and bits of the soul too. Changbin watches him unashamedly, in the way that only happens when staring down the barrel of a memory. Just waiting to pull the trigger.

But the petulant hiss and scream of the kettle interrupts. Changbin pours the water, and then goes to the cupboard to grab a mug. Of course, he usually does a pretty good job of keeping things _as they should be._ Everything cluttered onto the bottom two shelves, and pushed toward the front of the cupboard so he can reach everything from his tiptoes.

Right now being the exception. His dishwasher is loaded full, desperately needs to run it, except he’s out of powder. His last mugs are pushed all the way to the back of the cabinet where, try as he might, he just can’t reach. Maybe if he stands on his tiptoes. Hops up and grabs it.

It’s only when those hands rest asymmetrically upon his body, one on his hip and other on his flank. So warm, that it radiates through the cotton of his t-shirt, that he knows. Knows for certain. Knows that it can’t be stopped.

“You’re gonna fall.” Then the feeling of Chan’s body pressed too close and too flush against him, as he exerts himself now, standing on his tiptoes, and finally reaches the mug.

“Thanks.”

The obvious choice is to recreate a memory, but that never works out. Changbin decides to create something new. “Wanna see something cool?”

Changbin leads him down the hallway, past the spot in the carpet stained purple-red from cheap wine on New Years eve, past the open door to his bedroom, to the very end of the hallway. “It’s not much, but I’m sure that it’s better than whatever toy piano they’re letting you use at your company.” Thin apartment drywall tacked with bits of foam. A few Yamahas and his desktop make everything look cluttered.

For a moment, Chan doesn’t respond. Slack jawed and wide-eyed he shuffles over to a keyboard, turns it on, and taps out the first few notes of a song that gets played dozens of times a day on the radio even though it came out before thirty or forty years ago. “Wow.”


	2. Chapter 2

Changbin sits on one of his amplifiers, unwilling to choose from either the office chair or loveseat in the same room.

Both are available, because Chan himself ignores the furniture. He’s seated on the carpeted floor messing with the Moog he keeps stowed underneath his desk. Wireless mouse rests on his thigh for whenever it’s time to change songs.

Seated precariously atop the amplifier, Changbin’s feet can’t quite sit flat upon the carpet. Chan gently placed noise cancelling headphones over his ears, because true to habit Changbin showed up well past midnight. Chan wouldn’t dare disturb the neighbors. Atop the amplfier, Changbin nods his head appreciatively to the music. Occasionally interrupting those rhythmic motions to roll his neck to either side.

“What do you think?”

“What?” Changbin yells into the quiet room, so as to hear his own voice over the sound of the music.

In response, Chan leads forward and edges the headphones off of Changbin’s ear. “What do you think?”

“Why do you care? You’re Mr. Cool producer.” But the shine in Changbin’s eyes says that he might in fact, like what he’s offered.

The fact of the matter is, he cares very much. Always has. “One more. Please?”

“Doesn’t mean that I’ll like it,” Changbin responds with a false sourness and immature pout. 

In that moment, what’s the difference between a vinyl record, or a FLAC file on his desktop? What’s the difference between yearning for a past that hasn’t fully become Changbin’s present, or a present that will inevitably become a part of Changbin’s future? Chan makes Changbin an offering by pressing play in his media player.

This track is rooted in something that Chan probably wasn’t supposed to see, but is so publicly available. Changbin’s Instagram bio contains a SoundCloud link, and after Changbin tracked him down and added him, Chan _just had to._ Among several tracks each of them rough, unrefined, and predominantly made with prepackaged loops on FL studio. But there was one that stood out. All original, the samples used were subtle, and didn’t have to carry the melody. Still rough, and amateur, but wholly Changbin’s. Since it was Changbin that created it, it was special. For that reason, regardless of the compression or the somewhat cliché use of snap-claps, Chan would never look down upon it.

Chan hopes that Changbin understands that he didn’t approach this final track with the intention of “making it better.” He’s not some overprotective parent exchanging macaroni art for an oil painting to turn in for a kid’s school project. Chan has done that a great deal with music. Often times, he’s handed something lackluster and turns it into something great by obliterating everything that the song originally was. This is anything but. This is a remix in the purest degree, an homage, a love song written about the love song. 

Chan watches as Changbin’s cocksure smile softens at first. Then, his expression draws tight, not in frustration but in sharp concentration as he listens carefully and purposefully to each and every note. Finally, he relaxes once more, lips falling open, he holds Chan’s gaze intently. “You did this for me?”

“Yeah. It won’t guarantee that you can spit fire. It won’t help you get better rankings in auditions at all, but for what it’s worth, they’re yours. All of them, but especially this one.”

Changbin nudges the headphones off of his ears and lets them encircle his neck, and then slides down from the amplifier, the equipment wobbling precariously. From there he climbs directly, and unapologetically into Chan’s lap.

Chan’s response is automatic, hands flying directly to Changbin’s hips. His fingers brush against belt loops, and rest tentatively against his ass, but he dare not behave too greedily.

Easier said than done. Like the last piece of a puzzle, Changbin’s body fits perfectly into his. Clings to him, in the way that only someone who has yearned for affection for a very long time can cling to another person. Chan recognizes it well.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’re into me.”

Maybe if Chan were a better person, he’d see this for what it was. Two people, attracted to one another for no other reason beyond loneliness. Maybe, if he were a better person, he’d say no when Changbin, not still a child, but certainly not yet a man, regularly asks to come over at odd hours. Because he comes to Chan for answers, and although he may not like it very much, “no,” is still very much an answer.

Chan doesn’t answer, “no.”

It’s a yes, meekly spoken with surrendered acceptance. It’s a yes spoken through actions as his fingers toy with the hem of his shirt and press against the warm skin underneath. It’s a yes that gains strength and volume and urgency when their lips meet. It’s a yes when his fingers thread through Changbin’s thick black hair and pull him closer. It’s a yes that’s repeated and made stronger when Changbin loops his arms around Chan’s neck.

Chan’s choice seems like the right thing to do, or at least the rightest thing to do when you’ve already made several lapses. The right thing to do when the head and the heart can’t reach an agreement. When you have something so precious, right in your lap, and you know that it’s going slip away as the sands of time are washed out by life-tide. 

He smells strongly of the kind of 3 in 1 soap-shampoo-conditioner most commonly used by the kind of young men who are too young to care, or need to worry about breakouts caused by thick makeup and damage caused by too many hair treatments.

So he kisses Changbin again. Tilts his chin upward and captures his sigh-open mouth. Grazes his tongue across plush lips and waits for Changbin’s tongue to find his at the place where his mouth is slotted over his own.

When he breaks the kiss, he cups Changbin’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. Looks at him with a fierceness and scrutiny that must certainly pale in comparison to the way that Changbin looked at him all those years ago. Kissing Changbin again, his lips graze against his sharp jawline.

“From the moment I met you.”

* * *

Changbin didn’t intend for his home to become a flop-house turned sanctuary for a wanna-be idol. But it has. This fact is apparent to him when he wakes up in the middle of the night to take a piss and finds Chan in his home office, passed out at his desk, production software still running at 4:45 in the morning. The little clock in the corner of the screen won’t let him forget it.

“Chan.” Changbin pokes at his shoulder to no response. “Chan.” Dead to the world, his body is at its limit after a week of late nights and early mornings. Changbin can’t remember the last time that he passed out at an odd angle, in a strange location from sheer exhaustion, but he remembers the cramped feeling in his neck quite well. “Chris.”

“Huh-what?” Chan’s eyes flutter open slowly, as if he’d been awoken by natural morning light.

“You passed out.”

“Oh.” Chan stands up abruptly and stumbles when his limbs don’t quite cooperate. “I’ll go home then.”

“The trains aren’t running yet. Come on.” He clamps his hand down firm on Chan’s shoulder. It’s resignation, but for what, he’s not completely certain. All he knows is that contained within that gesture is friendship, mixed with genuine attraction, with a clouded film on top that obscures Changbin’s true motivations, even from himself. Something like mentorship even though he himself feels just as lost. Even though Chan seems like the kind of person who would be just fine without him.

He leads Chan by the hand down the hallway to his room. The covers pulled back and the bed still warm. “Hey, take off your coat.” Because it seems glued to his skin, even when he’s inside. Constantly cold, his body still acclimated to a place that he hasn’t visited in years. Chan sheds his coat, but climbs into bed still in his jeans and his belt.

“And scoot over, this is my side.” Changbin climbs into bed beside him. Arms wrap around his middle. A next of curly hair tickles his nose, and it’s impossible to not thread his fingers through his hair. Treated, colored, and dry, but still abundant and thick. 

“Changbin?”

“Hm?”

He knows what happens next.

The room isn’t completely dark, rays poke through the horizon despite the fact that the sun has not yet risen. Chan’s eyes, heavy lidded with sleep, close. His lashes are matted with sleep but still impossibly long. His mouth parted slightly.

Gasp-sigh into the kiss, a wordless cry of, “ _finally.”_ The kiss itself is juvenile, something that he hasn’t experienced himself in years, too wet, too much teeth. Still it feels hard earned. Chan laps at his mouth in sleep-addled, languid flicks of his tongue. It’s infectious, and Changbin kisses him back just as gracelessly.

“Changbin?”

“Hm?”

“I think you’re so cool.”

It’s a very simple statement, deceptive in nature. Looking feather light, it’s dense and awkwardly shaped. Yet simultaneously earnest.

More effective than black coffee or rolling thunder, it shakes sleep from his mind. Haunts him to the core. Waits until he can hear the sound of Chan’s breath even out. Until a soft sigh-snore slips from his mouth. “You’re really cool too Chan.”

* * *

“You don’t like it.”

Chan removes the air pod from his left ear. The other of course, rests in Changbin’s left ear. “I never said that.” Another late night, another unexpected but ultimately expected visit from Changbin. “There’s just memories attached to it.”

Changbin’s had the lock combination for a few weeks now, and _always_ seemed to text before he dropped by.

But not tonight.

Tonight, he’d actually gone out. Invited by friends that he had a lot of catching up to do with, but never quite knew what to say. The restaurant promised authentic tacos, but served something on tortillas with shredded cheddar cheese.

When he came home, he found all the lights in the living room and kitchen left on. A brand new pair of Yeezy’s hastily shucked off and left near, but not quite on the shoe rack Chan keeps by the door. Then, he walked back to his room to find Changbin sitting in bed with his Bluetooth headphones on. Wet slicked hair, Chan’s pajamas, and cherry red nose, subtlety has never particularly been his specialty.

They’ve been playing playlist roulette with each other ever since. Changbin sitting between Chan’s legs, leaning against his chest. Chan’s arm’s wrapped around his slim waist, and he feels so much smaller than he remembers.

“What kind of memories?”

“Oh, horrible ones,” Chan smiles against the shell of his ear before nibbling at the skin. “Being trapped in taxi on the runway on a flight to Sydney for like two hours.”

“Wait, really?”

“No.” Cupping his chin, at the risk of being greedy, Chan steals another kiss. “You know what kind.” Changbin’s choices are carefully curated despite the fact that they come off as an eclectic mixture of early stage music snobbery. _Redbone,_ and _Poetic Justice,_ and _Cosmic Dancer,_ and _Criminal._ Nevertheless, Changbin speaks his desire in song.

Now, it’s Chan’s turn to respond. Lap at his mouth and blow his mind with a record that’s ranked on every list: _Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Blender_ , and _Kerrang_ , and everyone’s got an opinion about whether or not it’s overrated, or underrated.

“This guy I used to be into used to play this album to drown out the sound of us fucking. Because it was just this one, our roommates figured it out right away.” Chan fiddles with Changbin’s phone, looking through his library with great concentration.

Its important, the song that he selects, although he would not call it a choice.

“I don’t have any memories like that Chan.” Changbin turns, kneeling between his legs, and demands all of his attention. He splays his hands wide across his chest and waits for Chan to react. The kiss that they share is sloppy-wet. Changbin’s mouth feels kiss bruised and hot.

Chan gives the air pod that he’d been wearing to Changbin so that he has both. “We can make you one.” He trails his touch down the length of Changbin’s jawline, allowing his thumb to test the elasticity of Changbin’s pink lower lip. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

* * *

His voice is rough and husky in a way that he’s not used to, and because of that he knows that this moment is both rare and intimate. Changbin can feel his mouth morph into a lopsided smile against the shell of his ear as Chan speaks, “good morning Changbin.” This greeting is accompanied by the scratch-itch sensation of Chan rutting his hard on against Changbin’s ass.

Changbin’s eyes are barely open, and everything seems fuzzy. If Chan hadn’t demanded his attention, he’d fully intended on rolling over and going back to sleep.

But since he’s sort of awake, he’s acutely aware of dryness in his mouth. A sure sign that he’d been sleeping with his mouth open, everyone knows, morning breath is really hot. His head throbs in the kind of still tired way that only happens after a night of unrestful sleep. In this case, unrest brought on by the knowing that Chan was in his home but hadn’t yet come to bed. Part of him had been naive enough to wonder if Chan would remember his stolen, crepuscular kisses from that morning. Part of him feels foolish for ever believing that may be the case.

Another furtive thrust. This time, Chan grabs his hips and grinds into him simultaneously. “Changbin,” the kiss is thick like morning breath. Followed up immediately by smaller kisses to his neck and the lobe of his ears when Changbin’s responses are sluggish. “Changbin, did you dream about me?”

The robust scent of coffee permeates the air. Which is weird, because whenever he’s forced to make it at home, as opposed to picking something up from the coffee shop, it smells acrid and slightly burned.

Rough hands, bolder now, sneak underneath the hem of his shirt. Chan grazes his thumb against his nipple, and of course it goes straight to Changbin’s dick.

Does it still count as the truth if Chan doesn’t yet understand? Is he still honest if he doesn’t provide context? Changbin responds to the question, gentle and earnest, “all the time,” before Chan captures his lips in another desperate kiss.

For all he knows, Chan doesn’t know any better. There’s no mood to kill, because Chan is perpetually horny and lives in a world where privacy is nonexistent. Because Chan is nineteen and doesn’t know any better. He probably still thinks that shower sex is hot like they make it seem in the movies. 

Because he’s about to ruin everything. Forget the beautiful, curly haired boy poking his ass with his dick. Changbin is _tired,_ but Chan seems to understand that there’s no mood to be made until he’s choked down half a cup. “Did you make me coffee?”

His blurred vision clears, and he confirms the ceramic rim of his favorite mug, the one that has all 151 original pokemon wrapped around the side.

“Yeah, I’ve been up for a couple hours now. Tried to wake you up.” Undoubtedly the same way he’s doing it now by just rubbing his dick anywhere near Changbin’s body that’s soft and warm. “I thought maybe you’d wake up if I made you breakfast in bed, but you don’t really have much in the fridge. So I made you coffee, but you looked so good. Changbin.” There’s more furtive humping, cloth against cloth into the cleft of his ass.

He’s lucky he’s cute.

“You don’t want to?” Chan looks mortally wounded when he pulls away.

Changbin sits up and pushes the comforter back slightly. “I want to.” Changbin grunts in response. He grabs the mug of coffee and takes a sip. He doesn’t like black coffee, but it turns out if someone who kind of knows what they’re doing is making it, it’s not the worst. Odd, given Chan doesn’t drink coffee. “For the record, I keep the sugar in the container above the microwave.”

Chan bites his lip and stares at him expectantly. “Changbin--”

“Don’t worry, I’ll sit on your dick when I’m caffeinated don’t worry.” Changbin pats his thigh patronizingly before moving his hand upward and gently squeezing Chan’s cock through his underwear. Funny, he wouldn’t take off his clothes when Changbin hauled him to bed this morning, but now Chan’s jeans and oversized crewneck are suspiciously absent. The only thing covering him is a pair of black briefs.

Chan steals another kiss, and it’s long and lingering. When Changbin breaks the kiss, he immediately returns his attention to the mug of coffee in his hands. And then, because he doesn’t believe in leaving good deeds unpunished, “touch yourself while you wait for me to wake up.”

“You’re really gonna sit on my dick?” Chan smirks as he palms himself through his boxers.

“Yeah,” Changbin sips at the Columbian blend in his mug. “Unless you’re not into that.”

“I’m so into that,” Chan responds eagerly. The red-pink tip of his cock appears over the stretched gray waistband of his boxers. Inch by inch, Chan teases him, pulling his shorts down lower, and lower, until he can see all of him. Neatly trimmed curls cushion his uncut cock, aching hard, which rests flush against his stomach. “I guess...I just think it’s cool. I mean, it’s just that I’ve never--”

“I know.” Changbin responds. “I mean, I can tell.”

Flustered, Chan talks quickly, desperate for some kind of response to land. “I mean never all the way. I mean, not all the way with a guy. I mean--”

“Chan, relax.” Taking another sip, he notices a hairline crack on the opposite side of the mug. What a shame. “And touch your dick.”

Chan listens. Falls back onto the propped up pillows at the headboard, and rucks up his shirt, exposing the faintest traces of definition. Then he starts teasing Changbin in earnest, taking the head of his cock between his index finger and thumb, tugging the foreskin down and then covering the head of his cock. Repeats this motion several times until precum shines at the tip and dribbles onto his thigh.

“What a good boy, Channie.”

Ah. Changbin’s going to blow his mind.

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re really sexy Chan?”

“Ah, no?” It’s like permission to move forward. Envelop his cock with the palm of his hand and work the length of it. He preens under the attention, face blushed red.

“Then it would be a disservice to inflate your ego. I won’t tell you.”

“Chang-ah-Changbin,” Chan whines. “C’mon.”

“In a minute.” He’s downed half a cup by now. That’s more than enough to be functional, but he wants to tease him in the same way that Chan teases him. Because he knows the kind of game that Changbin’s playing and touches himself in tantalizing slow strokes.

Wants to watch in rapt fascination, the way that the dark blue veins contrast against Chan’s fair skin, and pulse when he jerks his cock.

“Stop. Stop jerking yourself.” Chan’s hand flies from his dick full stop and grabs onto the sheet for an anchor. “Rub the head a little bit. With your thumb.”

Chan does exactly what he’s told, smearing the precum across his head and back down the length.

“That’s why I don’t care if you’ve never done this before Chan. You want it more. You wanna work harder for it.”

“That has nothing to do with who I have-or-ah-haven’t fucked before.”

Changbin mulls this over for a moment, watching as Chan fists his length in uneven strokes. Closing his eyes for a moment, he listens to the furtive rustling sound of skin against skin, and Chan’s increasingly needy gasps. Then, he sets his coffee mug onto the nightstand, and trades it for a bottle of lube. Only then does he speak, with more thought than he’s given much of anything in a very long time. Click of the cap as he wets his fingers, “that’s probably true,” before he positions them so that he’s sitting between Chan’s legs, his legs over Chan’s thighs and his feet stuck in that awkward space between the headboard and the mattress. Then, he takes Chan’s cock in his hands.

Chan humors him and allows him to get a few quick pumps down the length of his shaft, but no more. Because he’s on him in seconds, touching his dick and pulling him into thick, coffee breath kisses, rough and deep that show how thoroughly he’d exhausted his restraint. 

Cocks pressed together, they jerk each other off in sloppy, mismatched gestures. Changbin’s lube covered hand gliding across the heads of their cocks, and Chan’s rough palm teasing the bases. Sweat slicked foreheads pressed together, skin slip-slides against skin, bump noses, and bruise each other’s mouths with increasingly sloppy kisses that have no beginning and no end.

It feels good, simple, in a way that sex hasn’t been for him in a very long time. “Alright.” He pulls back slightly, and this earns him a muted whimper from Chan.

“It’s gonna be really difficult to sit on your dick if you make us cum, or at least delay everything by twenty minutes.”

* * *

Chan kisses him in the kind of way that makes his knees weak, even though he’s kneeling. Maybe it’s just another petulant ploy for attention. Anything to get Chan to hold him up with his strong muscled arms. Maybe Chan’s just that good of a kisser. All he knows is that when Chan kisses him, he feels melted, his skin congealed to Chan’s skin. His clothes and Chan’s clothes, become all matted and stuck together. Just when he truly believes that Chan can’t make him feel any better, he pushes him back onto the bed, and worries a purple mark into the crook of his neck. “Changbin.” More kisses, and Chan’s tugging at the collar of his shirt to get access to more skin.

He can feel Chan’s dick pressed against his thigh, and _holy fuck._ Is Chan gonna fuck him?

“Can I take your shirt off?”

“Yeah.” Music creeps into the air pods, slowly, but abruptly, like a draft on a late summer night turned autumn. “Chan?” Changbin holds his arms up over his head so that Chan can remove his shirt.

“Hm?”

“Are you gonna fuck me?”

“Do you want me to?” Chan pauses for a moment. Combs his hair back away from his face with his fingers. Holds his face between his hands and looks him deep in the eyes.

“I think so.”

“Let’s start smaller. Let me make you cum to a really good song. Okay?”

At that moment, serendipitously timed, low slow music begins. Chords meander up and down along the base. Changbin can’t hear himself, but is almost certain that he responds, “okay.”

Chan splays his hand across Changbin’s bare chest. The touch is feather light, yet it feels so heavy handed. Crushes him into the mattress with a weight that feels unimaginable.

For a moment, Chan doesn’t do much more than kiss him. For this, he’s grateful. Like the black boots by the door and the fleece blanket on Chan’s sofa, it’s familiar to him now. The feeling of his hands at his side and touches at his hips are easy to become accustomed to. Eager, controlled fingers graze down his shoulder, and into the crook of his arm and back again. The motions are repetitious, and build steady, tantalizing rhythm like the song.

The lyrics, haunting and desperate.

_“Nobody loves me Not like you do.”_

Chan’s touches are the steady, meandering beat. Changbin’s responses, writhing against the sheets and arching into the touch, becomes the haunting and desperate verse.

Chan’s tongue is everywhere. The crook of his neck, his collar bones, and his chest. Chan teases his nipples with his tongue and his teeth until they feel puffy, red, and overstimulated. Cannot imagine the sounds that he makes, thank god they’re drowned out by the sound of music, equally filthy. But fuck, Chan makes him feel _so good._

Kiss down his fluttering stomach, and then work his way all the way back up, lingering at the crests of his hips, Chan is thorough. “I wanna suck you off. Is that cool?”

“So cool.”

Chan makes short work of the oversized sweats that he wears, leaving him bare upon the sheets. Suddenly, Changbin is hyperaware of how naked he is, and how clothed Chan is. So he tugs at his shirt until Chan gets the hint and strips down just as bare. Somehow, he’s hotter than Changbin’s fantasies, which come piecemeal through tight runner’s leggings, and short cropped shirts. Compact muscle and-- _oh god. His dick is--_ Now it’s like he has to prove himself or something.

Chan settles back between his legs, Changbin can feel the hot puff of breath against his thighs. That’s all the warning he gets before Chan’s grazing his teeth against the tender skin of his inner thigh. Whispering secrets into his skin, Changbin’s to discover in purple little marks after this is over.

Chan looks at the bruises, and when he’s satisfied he moves on. Puffs of hot air against his length send shivers down his spine. Only when he opens his eyes once more, meets Chan’s gaze completely, does Chan lap experimentally at the tip.

Changbin sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth and gasps. It mirrors the gasped and needy sounds of the vocalist in the song.

This only seems to spurn Chan on as he lavishes attention upon him with his tongue. Tracing the ridge and teasing the head with short flicking motions. Tests the weight of his sac in the palm of his hand. Presses against his perineum with his fingertips, and there’s the promise of something there. Something that he’s strived so hard for alone, and never quite succeeded at. Something that makes his vision tunnel and spark.

He’s getting played like the sampler on the floor of Chan’s studio, and he loves every second of it. Just when he thinks that he can get lost in the melody, Chan changes tempo. Licks a stripe from the base to the tip and then from the tip to the base before guiding Changbin’s cock into his mouth

Holy fuck, that’s like all of it. His dick is in Chan’s mouth and it feels so fucking good. Tight, and wet, and hot. Looks up at him with heavy lidded eyes veiled by long lashes, like all he wanted to do was suck him off tonight. 

Chan is magic, and he’s gonna fucking pop. His brain is a jumbled mixture of what he should and should not do right now. Tell Chan that he’s gonna cum, but buck his hips up into his mouth. All he knows is that his cock pulses in Chan’s mouth. Feels an odd tug of shame-pride-lust when Chan swallows without question.

Chan moves back up his body, frames his face with the palms of his hands, and kisses him deeply. He can taste himself on Chan’s mouth, bitter and taboo.

Cautiously, Chan removes an earbud. “Did you like it?””

Changbin kisses him again because he cannot respond right aware. Because it’s hard to feel so much, and have no idea what to say. So he nods first, and then manages to choke out, “yeah.” Pathetic, and unintelligible, “god, fuck yeah.”

* * *

He was nervous before, with Bambam, and Brian, and Yugyeom, and that one, weird time with Dowoon. But at the end of the day it was just Bambam. Just Brian. And so on, and so forth. It was just fooling around and getting off. But right now? Right now his heart thunders in his chest, because this isn’t Yugyeom, or Dowoon. This is Changbin. The funniest, sexiest, maybe the coolest, definitely the most ripped guy he’s ever met. Like god, he wishes his arms were that big.

And he’s absolutely making good on his promise of sitting on his dick by grabbing the base of his cock and sinking down impossibly slowly. Inch, by inch, by inch until Changbin is seated in his lap.

Tight, but not at all in the same way that Changbin clenched around his fingers. Changbin’s body is needy, desperate now, like he needs Chan inside, and needs him now. It’s kind of nice to know that through the controlled smirk and banter, there’s need there too, and it’s just as wild and uncontrolled as the need that Chan has for him.

Serene, the way his eyes are closed, long lashes shining in the light. His cheeks are flushed ever so slightly, jaw slack lips parted, and Chan decides that, not unlike when he’s sleeping, this is how he likes to see Changbin. Because sometimes it’s difficult to see past the fake rancor, and the overzealous affection. In moments like this, he doesn’t have to sift, and he doesn’t have to hope to catch the glimmer. All that’s presented to him is the real Changbin.

“Doesn’t hyung feel good?” Leaning forward to pull out ever so slightly, Changbin kisses his forehead in a gesture that’s more tender than heated. He bounces experimentally on Chan’s cock, and it makes him feel dizzy.

“So good,” he says kissing Changbin again. Then, in a move that he knows will get him scolded, Chan grabs Changbin’s hips and thrusts upward.

What he gets in response is somehow better. The sharp bite of nails digging into his shoulder, and the long raspy moan spilled from the corner of Changbin’s mouth, “fuck.”

Fingers glide down sweat sheened abdominal muscles. Greedily, he takes in Changbin’s body in ways that he had been too timid to do before, kneading the firm flesh of his ass, and squeezing muscular calves.

Where it was impossible to find synchronicity before, they do so easily now. When Chan cants his hips upward, Changbin slides down his dick. Alternates between holding him deep inside and rocking grinding his hips and using his athletic build to its fullest riding Chan hard. Almost pulling off and sinking back down and doing it all over again before Chan can so much as catch his breath.

This viscous friction makes him feel unhinged. Makes him want to cum, but he knows that it’s much too soon. So, he closes his eyes and tries to think about anything, literally anything that won’t make him bust. Blobfish and spoiled milk, and someone taking the seat next to on the bus when there’s plenty open. All things that make him uncomfortable.

“Hey,” Changbin demands his attention, “look at me.” The rocking motion of Changbin’s hips slows, but never quite stills completely, keeping on the precipice of something grand and something terrifying. And when he opens his eyes, kisses him foolish and wide eyed. “You gonna cum?”

“No--” but the desperation that tinges his voice betrays him.

“Chan,” Changbin’s gravel black voice fluctuates into a light airy giggle. The action makes him draw up tight around Chan’s cock. Fuck. “Nothing hurts my feelings more than not being paid attention to. I’d prefer it if you came.”

“Wanna make it good for you.” To make his point clear, he curls his fingers back around Changbin’s cock.

“Oh, you’re making it good baby,” Changbin buzzes playfully in his ear. “I don’t do this for just anybody.”

As if he has to prove it, Changbin leans back, propping himself up on his palms. He moves now, not just with his hips, but with his legs, riding him in a crab position.

“Holy fuck.” From this angle, Chan can see everything: his cock gliding in and out of Changbin’s rubbed red hole, his cock and balls as they flop and dribbles precum against the length, and upward across the expanse of his stomach and his chest, ending at his cocksure smile. “God you’re so hot Changbin.”

The feeling that he’d worked so hard to abate is back again, quickly and abundantly. Warm urgency, that makes him want to fuck Changbin harder, and simultaneously close himself off to Changbin. A delicate push-pull that he’s just been permission to come in and wreck completely.

“Wanna fuck you.” In a series of unbalanced and graceless movements, Chan shifts their position so that he’s kneeling. This of course, knocks Changbin off balance, so that he falls into the mattress. Then, he pushes Changbin all the way onto his back, so that he’s on top.

In that moment, their eyes meet, and he an already tell what it is that Changbin’s going to tease him with next, “you’re already fucking me.”

Chan expected this response. “More. I wanna fuck you more.”

With his legs wrapped tight around Chan’s middle, Changbin dares him, “do it.”

It’s not in Chan’s nature to be contrary. Never felt good about disobeying or breaking the rules. Usually, he’s just going along with it, but now he desperately, hangs onto Changbin’s every command. Wants to not only do what he’s told but do it well.

He pounds into Changbin, all hot-slick-wet, over and over again until he’s deafened by the sharp sound of skin slapping against skin. Jerking Changbin’s cock, assumptions are made about what he likes and how he likes it. Rough long strokes that brush against the ridge, twist his hand just right and caress the head. Immediate. Constant. “Changbin, I’m looking at you. I can’t take my eyes off of you. Fuck--you’re so sexy.” Yeah, he’s asking for permission to cum without really asking. Because it makes his cheeks burn red-hot.

“You too.” Changbin agrees between sticky damp kisses. His gaze, heavy and unnerving never once waivers, but instead burns into his skin and makes him feel self-conscious. His hand joins Chan’s at his cock, thrusting with wild abandon into their fingers.

Chan cums with an unceremonious jerk of his hips and a moan that sounds more like a sob.

He grinds into Changbin until he cums into his hand.

Just when he thinks Changbin’s gonna let him catch his fucking breath, He absolutely wrecks him again without even trying. Chan pulls out slowly, and oh god. Changbin’s leaking his cum from where he’s so warm, and so wet, and so fucked. He’s helpless, and all he can do is capture his mouth into another bruising kiss.

* * *

So this is sex huh? Weird, when he considered how just kissing Chan made him feel like he was drowning, how the simplest of touches set his whole body aflame. But now, now that Chan’s dick is very, very much inside of him, he’s confronted with the complicated feeling of pleasure-pain and doesn’t quite know what to do.

“Binnie,”

It’s not bad.

It’s just not good either.

“Changbin,” breathed thick and hot into his ear.

It’s like forgetting to carry the one in arithmetic. So many times he’s felt so close to the correct answer while he fitfully touched himself between the sheets or in the shower. Chan’s fingers were longer, reached deeper and actually hit that place inside of him that he’s read about on every sex blog _ever._ But his cock is thicker, stretching him wide and making his skin burn. The promise of that feeling returning again now that Chan is inside of him edged out by discomfort. “How you doing?”

“I’m okay,” adding quickly, “I’m good,” because he doesn’t want Chan to stop even if he doesn’t know if he likes it or not.

Chan lies on his back, and Changbin lies upon his back too on top of Chan. With Chan’s chest pressed to his back, he can feel nothing but compact muscle underneath. On the other side, Chan’s hands roam, tracing the curve of his body. His fingers settle upon Changbin’s nipples. His coaxing touches transforming the soft flesh. “I’m not hurting you am I? Please talk to me.”

“A little,” but the way they’re positioned, he can control how deep Chan is inside of him. Right now, he has his legs drawn up closer to his chest, the level of penetration is quite shallow. “But it’s okay,” because Chan is a challenge, and he’s determined, bound to the very notion that the fact that he’s never fucked before isn’t something to be taken but something to be shared. He doesn’t have delusions of grandeur. Chan’s probably fucked countless times, but he wants to make it good for him too.

“Changbin,” Chan whispers into his ear and it sends an uninhibited shiver down his spine. Chan’s addictive, rough-warm touch trails down his chest and settles between his legs. “It’s okay. I’m gonna take care of you.” Chan’s cock twitches inside of him as he speaks, and it makes his whole face flush crimson.

Changbin’s erection, diminished ever so slightly because of the discomfort, is brought back to fullness almost immediately by Chan’s touches. First playful, almost frustrating touches, that brush and caress but never satisfy. Then, indulgent tugs that make his cock twitch in Chan’s grasp.

“Ch-ah-” The fact that it’s _him_ making those pitiful, slippery sounds, takes a moment. First, he feels confusion, and then viscous wonder. Somehow, through it all, he’s relaxed enough to sit fully on the length of Chan’s cock now. That his own dick is aching hard again and leaking pre-cum onto his stomach, like Chan didn’t just suck him off moments before.

_Ah._ So this is sex.

"Better?" Chan moves inside of him now, not in and out, not with Changbin laying on top of him, but in slow friction building circles making the sparks that will soon catch flame. Strong arms wrap around his chest and pull Changbin somehow closer.

"Yeah," Changbin raises his hips experimentally and lets himself fall back down onto his cock.

But its too much too soon and he winces in discomfort.

"Easy, not too fast." Strong hands settle at his hips guiding him off his cock ever so slightly, just enough to feel it, and then sliding him back down. "I can tell though. That it doesn’t feel so bad. Felt you relax around me."

Embarrassment floods to his face. "Oh god." And he feels so grateful that he and Chan can't look at each other directly now. 

"What?" Chan's voice is playful as he rocks into him.

"That's so embarrassing." 

"No it isn't." Chan's voice husked into his ear makes him arch his back into Chan. Drives him deeper. Makes him feel the way his cock twitches deep inside of him. "It's really sexy."

He doesn't wholly believe Chan, not when the other man just seems to radiate effortless, genuine sexiness. Like right now when he lifts his hips up like he weighs nothing at all and guides him back down. Like when he teases the lobe of his ear with his mouth.

Guess he'll just fake it. Pivots his body up and down using his feet, planted flat against Chan's thighs in a bent position.

Little static shocks instead of rolling thunder and a jolt. Pleasure starts to edge out discomfort.

Like the tiny spark made in kindling has started to catch. Chan fucks his ass, gripping his hips so hard he'll likely bruise.

Demanding, he wants more even though the sting has just begin to fade.

“Chan, please.” Because as good as it feels, it’s also so furtive. Too much, quickly exchanged for not nearly enough, not at all.

“What do you need?” This time Chan punctuates his question with teeth grazed into the lobe of his ear, nipping at the tender spot where soft skin meets more rigid cartilage. “Changbin, tell me.”

“More,” fuck. “Just more.” 

“Doesn’t hurt anymore?” Chan obliges almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting for Changbin’s permission. Holding Changbin’s small form tight, he turns them so that they’re laying both upon their sides now “Changbin, please. Please talk to me.”

Except it’s so embarrassing, because whatever he says isn’t going to sound velvety smooth the way Chan does when he speaks. “No. Feels good.” Chan’s leg slides between his own, and in no time at all he’s rutting desperately against Chan’s thigh in time Chan’s thrusts, deeper and needier now.

“What does? I need to know.”

Yeah, this is somehow way more embarrassing than Chan looking at his asshole and saying, “it’s cute.” More embarrassing than him looking him dead in the eye while he put his fingers inside, all of which just happened moments ago. “You’re ah-just fucking with me.”

“I can’t help it.” Chan insists. “You make the best noises. Can’t you feel the way my cock twitches when you talk to me? When you make those noises? And I think you like it too. Right now you’re squeezing me so tight.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck he’s so fucked.

“So please,”

“I like um. You really wanna make sure that I’m okay.” That’s not dirty, not at all.

“Yeah, I wanna take care of you.”

“I like the way your um--” Penis? Dick? Cock? All of it sounds so fucking stupid when it’s coming out of his mouth. “How it feels.”

“You think you can cum again?” But Changbin, despite Chan’s insistence, doesn’t need to answer this question out loud. Chan’s hand is wrapped around his dick again. Slicked by the constant flow of precum from the head of his cock, Changbin fucks into Chan’s palm and pushes back onto his cock with shameless abandon. It’s everything he’s ever wanted on all the sleepless nights that he’s just sat in his room and jerked himself raw, but in the end the stinging-pleasure-overstimulated feeling is all the same.

“Yeah,” but as good as it feels, there’s something missing. Something that he can ask for, and not feel foolish. “Wanna kiss you again.”

“Of course.”

They shift again, Chan guiding him onto his stomach so that he lies prone. Chan kisses him again with an urgency that seems to negate the fact that they’ve probably kissed a hundred or more times tonight alone. Grazing his teeth along kiss bruised lips and lapping his tongue inside it still feels secret, forbidden, more so than sex itself.

Even though his frame is larger than Changbin’s he takes special care to not put too much of his weight on his body. He links their fingers together, “if there’s something you can’t say, squeeze my hand really hard. Okay?”

“Okay.” Changbin already knows to what he’s agreeing. Before Chan even started moving inside him again, he could feel his cock slip deeper inside. He feels fuller. The intimate sting in his lips from kissing for what feels like hours and it’s settled into his body in other places: a spot on his neck that Chan very much likes to latch onto, the place where they’re joined.

But it still feels _so good._ Continues to feel good even when Chan fucks into him harder, and faster than he’s done before. Where Chan’s cock felt like a caress from the inside before, he feels like a harsh insistence now. That insistence, persistent: he’s going to feel good, he’s going to feel full, and he’s going to hump into the duvet until he’s cum for a second time. This time, with a sharp cry that cannot be muffled with music or the back of his hand.

Chan’s thrusts become erratic, he’s close, and Changbin cannot be sure if that’s good or bad. His body hums now with the buzz of overstimulation and the demands that Chan makes upon his body, welcome moments before are too much. But he doesn’t want it to stop and it he doesn’t want it to end.

Even when he feels Chan pulse deep inside of him.

Even when he feels sticky wet cum drip down his thigh.

Chan pulls out slowly, cleans him up meticulously.

Sudden realization, like remembering that you left the door unlocked or that you forgot your keys. Not there at all, and then there all at once. He gets the feeling that the bar’s been set kind of high. Like if he lost it to some guy at the university, or someone just as clueless as him, it wouldn’t be the same. Wouldn’t have the same kind of pinkish glow, and soft kisses on his cheek.

So that’s sex huh?


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

“Put me down!” Changbin wriggles in his grasp. “You brute! You can’t just pick me up like a sack of potatoes!” 

“Just did,” Chan responds with a satisfying smack against Changbin’s ass. “String beans are easy to pick.” He walks down the hallway with Changbin tossed over his shoulder and sets him on the faux marble counter top right in between his Vitamix and his microwave. 

“I work out all the time! I’m gonna be buff soon.”

“Sure.” He is. As much as he likes  _ that  _ version of Changbin, the one that bench press more than him, the one that rolls up the sleeves of his shirt on purpose to show off his arms, he likes this version too because he feels like a secret, small and powerful.

Changbin’s kisses match his demeanor, small and powerful. Changbin loves kissing, and demands it from him, but Chan loves it too. They’ve kissed many times tonight, but this one is new. Changbin fists his hands into his shirt and pulls him forward latching his legs around his middle. Although Changbin’s cock is soft and spent in the pajama pants he’s borrowed from Chan, he clamors for friction anyway. Chan melts into him, pulling him closer by splaying his hands across the small of his back. “You’re insatiable,” Chan smiles into his ear. He’s also a far cry from the man who makes him touch himself while he finished his morning coffee.

They’re going to fuck again, and he knows it. Bend Changbin over the arm of the sofa later and fuck him nice and slow. Changbin told him so.

“You did this to me. So deal with it.”

Yeah he did, and it’s absolutely terrifying. Right now, in florescent kitchen light, he can look freely in Changbin’s eyes. There, he sees nothing more than pure adoration. Love for him, as he is, right now in this very moment.

But he can’t do the same.

And he can’t explain why.

All he knows for certain is that they’ve never been able to look at each other with that level of pure, unquestioning, unbroken affection  _ at the same time.  _

Chan kisses him again, a short peck on the mouth. This would be a great time to come clean.

In some ways, it’s just slightly easier to grab back the contemplative silence that he’d asked Changbin to hold. “Let’s eat something and get our energy back.” 

His fridge is almost bare, but he knows how to make do by rummaging through the cabinets.

But he has to say something right? He owes it to Changbin, who he loves in all forms. He owes it to a future, younger version of himself. Chan clears his throat awkwardly. “You know, you’re gonna get into a company soon.”

“You got some kind of crystal ball?”

Yes. “No. Just a feeling.” Chan pops two slices of sprouted grain bread into his toaster and then busies himself with finding something in the cabinet right next to where Changbin sits. Cups his shoulder to avoid grazing him with the sharp corner. From there, he pulls out the wheat flour that he never uses, and condensed milk that he’s probably had since he moved in, and vanilla extract that he bought with all kinds of intention. When all of that is pulled out of the cabinet, he finally finds what he wants, a relic left over from when he tried to make Felix a birthday cake. “There’s gonna be like, a lot of attractive people. Like, a lot.”

“Are you trying to give me the sex talk?” Changbin sniggers into his sleeve. “Like, I should always use a condom and stuff? Cause you just came in my ass.”

Chan responds in kind, dipping the tip of his index finger into his mouth, wetting it, and going right for Changbin’s ear. “Remember when you were too shy to talk dirty?”

Changbin dodges of course, by effectively  _ almost _ kneeing him in the balls.

“You always sound so ridiculous when you try to big brother me.”

“Just listen. Okay?”

Changbin doesn’t respond, but the sudden and abrupt silence and the unwavering and expectant gaze means that Changbin is willing to listen to him.

“Be careful okay? Not just who you hook up with, or date, or whatever. Like, how you do it. There’s so many people watching.”

At that moment, the toaster interrupts with an electric  _ pop _ making them both jump in surprise. The moment is gone. Chan has so much more to say, but is so unwilling. He’s selfish and he doesn’t want to explain. Just wants to hold onto Changbin, or at least this version of him for as long as he can.

_ Scrape. Scrape. Scrape,  _ the sound of avocado oil margarine spread against dry toast. Then, carefully, because it’s all about the ratio, a precision science, Chan shakes crystal pink sprinkles across the toast.

“What the hell?”

“Trust me, its’ good.”

“It looks delicious. I just had  _ no idea  _ you’d eat unhealthy stuff,” Changbin teases.

“Yeah, I had fries at dinner tonight too.”

“Shocked.”

For a moment, all they can do is crunch on their fairy bread in silence. Sprinkles stick to their sex chapped lips, and there’s no other choice than to kiss them away.

“Chan, sometimes you look at me the same way I probably look when a note from one of my classmates falls out of one of my old books. Like the way my mom looks at old pictures of her and my dad and they look real happy. But all that’s just a memory. You look at me like that, but I’m right here.”

It has to hurt Changbin, being looked at like that. It hurts him too, how accurate Changbin is. 

* * *

“Give him like,” Changbin did  _ not  _ fall back asleep against Chan’s chest. Not after he had  _ more  _ coffee after they fucked. No way. Chan’s just warm, and he feels relaxed when he’s next to him, and it just puts him in the nap zone.

He wasn’t sleeping, but his brain feels like static again and he’s blindly groping at the wrong side of his wallet for cash, dumping cards and bills onto the bed. “Give him like, a ton of money. Like,” He pulls a few fifty thousand and a few more ten thousand notes from the folds and the covers, but the food can’t cost more than forty thousand.

The Door Dash driver seemed really pissed off when he called Changbin to tell him that he was outside with their food, and Changbin buzzed him in. Honestly? That seems like his fault for saying he’d drive at--How the hell was it almost noon already? Okay, he really should tip him well. 

“I would’ve picked it up myself if you were gonna pay that much.” Chan laughs, and turns on his heel to buzz in the driver.

In that moment, Changbin cannot bear the thought of being alone. Childish, like he’s been accused of being by so many men, he latches onto Chan and pouts into his chest. “No way. I don’t even like the idea of you leaving me now.”

It’s just a few short steps to the front door, but he never wants to let him go. 

“Hey, bring it in here,” Changbin calls after him.

In a few moments Chan returns to the bedroom with a few plastic bags looped around his arm, and a cardboard drink carrier in the crook of his elbow. Yes, he’s having a latte, but he left out the extra shot he normally gets. “Don’t you think it’s weird to eat in bed?”

“Nah,” Changbin responds, popping the styrofoam top of a clam shell container revealing a stack of wide pancakes and smaller containers of butter and syrup. “We can streamline the process. Eat, go back to sleep, and then fuck around more when we wake up.”

“Oh--” Chan pauses, bite of omelette pinched between chopsticks, hovering inches away from his mouth. His face glows crimson red like he  _ wasn’t  _ balls deep in Changbin moments ago.

“Hey give me a bite,” Changbin insists. “Wait, no a bite without mushroom. That’s gross.”

Chan complies, plucking out a slice of mushroom with the tips of his disposable chopsticks before feeding it to him. 

“Thank you for breakfast,” Chan’s voice sounds soft now, but sincere. Like it’s about more than breakfast.

“It’s just an omelette Chan.”

“No, I mean for all of this. Letting me come over. Making all of this really nice for me. It’s um--It’s not how I expected it.”

In the silence in between, Changbin could say something. He doesn’t though. And Chan takes this lull in conversation for himself. “I guess I just thought I would go all the way with one of my friends just to say that I did. Maybe in the dorms when almost everyone else was home for holidays.”

_ Right now,  _ Changbin knows better. He really hasn’t done all that much at all. Maybe it would’ve been better for Chan if it had gone that way, but jealousy surges through his veins. Even if that jealousy is aimed at another version of himself. “I’m glad it wasn’t like that.” 

“What was yours like?”

“Oh. You wanna do that huh? Well, a gentleman shouldn’t kiss and tell,” as always he starts laughing before he reaches the punchline. It’s alright though, Chan has the same annoying habit that he does, even now. “That’s why I can tell you.” But it’s not why he  _ should.  _ “I was with an older guy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. “He was super, stupidly hot. Had a cool apartment. What can I say?”

“How much older?”

“Like nine, ten years.”

“Oh my god. That’s weird.” Sure, Chan. Whatever you say. He’s got a long time to change his mind and take his virginity. 

Changbin wets his lips, considering carefully what he wants to say next. He really wants to just spill it all, but he doesn’t exactly know how. “He was really, really good to me.”

“But...Portishead?”

“Portishead,” he responds. “And Depeche Mode, and Com Truise too. He blew me in his bed with headphones on, fucked me, made me food, and then fucked me on his sofa while one of those fractal videos played on TV in the background.”

“Wow.”

They eat in silence for some time, Changbin eats about a quarter of his pancakes before moving onto the side of bacon and obliterating it completely. Chan is much more methodical in his approach, eating equal amounts of omelette and toast.

“Don’t you want to ask me? About my group? About what happened?” Back then, Chan didn’t tell him a goddamn thing, and probably thought it was  _ for his protection _ or worse still  _ for his own good.  _ Changbin’s had  _ years  _ for the wound to scab over, get ripped open again, fester, and start the healing process all over again. All this time, he thought that he’d be able to take the high road. Stop  _ him.  _ Stop  _ them.  _ But he’s just as greedy.

“No--” He supplies too quickly, because it isn’t the truth. 

Changbin stares daggers at him to coax out the real response.

“I mean yes, but that’s so rude.”

“I fooled around with a group mate. Like, like a lot.” There’s a lump in his throat now, and he knows that it’s not because of the thick pancakes he’s eaten. He never thought it would be this hard.

He’s never talked about it with anyone before. Even back then, when their eyes lingered too long on each other, or looked at each other in enraptured surprise, it was so easy to write it off as infatuation, not deja vu. Why the fuck did they  _ never  _ talk about it?

“I don’t mean like, fucking around at the dorm before you debut. Or like, when your friends who’ve already debut come home with a brand new car, and take you out, and then you blow him in the back seat because there’s no better aphrodisiac than a brand new Benz. Because I know you do a lot of that. I mean like--” 

“It was serious.” 

“Yeah,” real serious. He wants to tell Chan not to do it. Just actually be that nerd who abides by the dating ban. Because there’s gonna be pictures of what really should be private taken by people who call themselves fans. There’s gonna be rumors, and blog posts, and fansites with hundreds of followers that get pissed off and vocal. He wants to tell him that it wasn’t something that made  _ Dispatch  _ or some shitty tabloid _.  _ They weren’t ever popular enough for  _ Dispatch. _

He wants to tell Chan that there’s no way in hell that they can be together. That they’re going to hurt each other badly. Despite all of it, they’re going to meet all over again in a matter of weeks, and it’s going to be just as strong, just as magnetic, and just as instantaneous, but he can’t.

“I think,” Chan takes a long draught of his  _ second  _ cup of juice. The first cup is already empty save for a few melting ice cubes, and he’s shoved it back into the drink carrier. “I mean I trained for so long. I’d like to believe that when I finally get there,” he doesn’t say  _ if.  _ That’s good. “I wouldn’t do anything to mess it up. But…” Chan looks at him carefully now, like an answer is written in the finest of print between his eyelashes. “It’s not that simple. It’s not like you actually wanted anything bad to happen.”

It’s terrifying really, the way that Chan seems to know without having yet lived it. Like he’s seen it before with all the friends that he’s made during all of those years in the dorms. Because of that, Changbin tells him the truth, or at least a polished version of it, ugly and monosyllabic. “No. No, I didn’t.”

* * *

His time with Changbin is like a side order of fried rice from a brand new takeout restaurant. Abundant, plentiful, and much more than he imagined. Like generous portions of rice, he gluttonously tries to have as much of Changbin as possible. He picks Changbin up from classes in his car and steals kisses from him from behind tinted windows. He tries, and fails, and tries again to teach Changbin how to make simple foods like fried eggs and steamed tofu. What he can’t learn in the kitchen, he learns in the bedroom. Changbin discovers and refines the art of sucking cock in an alarmingly short amount of time.

A generous portion of rice lingers in the fridge for several days, eaten slowly alongside other meals, but when it’s finally gone it’s hard not to crave all over again. Chan doesn’t count the days, doesn’t count the grains, but it feels incremental nonetheless.

“Oh my god, I got a call back. They want to see me again!” Changbin buzzes as he clamors into the car. 

“ _ HOLY FUCK. I AM GONNA BE A TRAINEE NOW?”  _ Text to him at exactly 2:36 P.M. while he’s in a meeting at work. He knows that Changbin is  _ supposed  _ to be in class.

So, when it finally comes, he’s almost ready.

Changbin slides into the passenger seat, and kisses him with nothing less than honest urgency. “Sorry I haven’t been around as much.” Another kiss, short and fast, a bridge between the last kiss, and the kiss that’s to come. Changbin kisses him like he  _ wants  _ to kiss him again, passionately, needy, but he’s just too excited to kiss him again like that  _ right now  _ because he so badly wants to tell him.

Chan selfishly pushes it back, even if it’s just for seconds into the future. He kisses Changbin again in a way that he  _ knows  _ will get a reaction. Trace the seam of his mouth with his tongue, and breathe hotly into the kiss. He doesn’t stop until Changbin is sighing into his mouth.

For a moment, he wonders if he can stop it altogether. The fact that he exists here and now as he is, is proof that he cannot. Or worse still, he chooses not to.

Some people don’t believe in second chances, and somehow Chan managed to steal a third from a cold and unforgiving world. But that’s not enough. Not by a long shot. 

What would be worse? Two members of the same group dating, or a rookie idol caught fooling around with a producer a decade older than him? If he can’t protect Changbin from himself in the past, then he’ll protect him from  _ himself,  _ here and now. He’ll end things completely. 

“They want me to do this audition. I mean this internal thing. For like...a group.”

* * *

Time is like a giant bag of spicy crab chips, plentiful and never ending, each bite better than the last. When he eats these crab chips, his mouth and tongue burn in protest, but he never stops. With Chan, his heart burns in protest, but he never, never stops. Instead, he takes him shopping for vinyl records and lets him borrow his favorite paperbacks. Time is like a giant bag of spicy crab chips, and he eats mindlessly until his hand reaches into an empty, grease stained bag. Spends his time recklessly with Chan, until it’s all used up.

And it happens so much faster than he ever expected.

“I was in a meeting today.” Chan’s touch is tentative now against his bare skin, such a sharp contrast to the way that he’d touched him moments earlier.

He’s still naked. The bed is mussed and the whole room smells like sex. Afterglow is edged out for ice in his veins, and his stomach drops because he knows.

And as much as he hurts for the future, because he loves Chan, and doesn’t want him to go through  _ that  _ particular hurt, he selfishly hurts for the now. Because he has him back again, finally, given the second...no, third chance that he so desperately believes that they deserve.

If Chan doesn’t have the maturity to end this, a rookie idol can’t get caught dating a spoiled heir and washed up idol who is years older than him, then he’ll try. He can’t promise, but he’ll pull together every shred of maturity that he’s scrimped and saved through the years and use it now by ending it. 

“The label has decided to move forward,” Chan’s smile is so wide and so bright. “They’re finally forming a new group. I’m gonna be in it.” 

* * *

The Second 

This practice room, which smells of sweat, and disinfectant, contains so much of his life. Maybe it’s a good thing that he will never accurately quantify the countless hours spent here. All he knows for certain is that when he is here, time becomes fuzzy. Hours feel like minutes, and minutes feel like centuries. There are times when he wonders if he’s ever left this room at all, or if he’s been stuck here in pristine mirrored purgatory. The world outside feels like a dream, and if he didn’t have a thread of text messages from  _ him,  _ he’d wonder if any of it were real.

He hasn’t seen him in awhile.

It’s probably better that way.

Even if it doesn’t feel  _ that way. _

Emotions, many of which he still cannot articulate are expressed in front of this very mirror and are stretched from floor to ceiling. Even if Chan isn’t certain what to call them, or how to deal with them, he’s faced every single one now as he practices. He’s vowed, and kept the vow to never look away.

It’s kind of funny. For six long years he looked into this mirror. For six years he was greeted with something that distinctly  _ wasn’t,  _ but was certainly was tinged with failure. Not once did he shy away. 

In a matter of seconds, the mere presence of another boy makes him do just that. 

Sharp features, thin frame, questionable bowl haircut. It’s all so different from the warm round face, toned muscle, and sexy-cool undercut that he’s used to.

So different that it would be so easy to deny it, even if just for a moment, until they’re forced to make introductions.

But there’s something about him that is untouched by time and rendered absolutely identical. He wears a gaze so fervid, that it could easily be interpreted as hostile. Slow drop of his jaw, and a raspberry pink tongue parts the seam of his lips as he wets them in careful consideration of how to approach him. 

Like he knows.

Like they’ve met before.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

* * *

The Fourth 

These back alley-ways and residential streets, like a well worn book that smells like aged paper and mildew, slips of paper and notes written in the margins, holds secret scraps of memory in each alcove and corner store.

It’s been a long time since he’s been in this part of town. Soon, for no other reason that he can, he finds himself walking down a familiar route, past the convenience store and the optometrist's office. Duck between the drug store and the dive bar and wedge himself through the claustrophobic alleyway.

He’s surprised that it’s still here. Because it only solidifies that this place that felt so much like an apparition, conjured in the autumnal fog in his hour of great need, wasn’t just imagined due to loneliness or want of warmth of touch. No, it’s all too real.

Had it been a dream, the hurt may somehow be dulled.

Even though it doesn’t make sense, the door code he last punched in  _ years  _ ago has to still the same. Has to  _ still  _ live in an apartment just across this grassy courtyard.

Changbin approaches the grotto and he allows carved statues to surround him, dwarf him, and make hm feel infinitely smaller.

Changbin hasn’t prayed in years. Even now, he cannot seem to bring himself to do so properly. Lowering his eyes to the asphalt, he crosses and uncrosses his eyes. The white band of the toes of his canvas sneakers double from two to four as he crosses his eyes. Abruptly, just as soon as he began, he pushes the world back together by uncrossing them.

Changbin loves him.

Changbin hopes that he’s happy.

With all the sincerity that one thought, plucked out of a thousand or more racing thoughts, can have, he focuses on it deeply for a second, or a fraction of a second. Then, he sets it free once again. Changbin hopes that he’s happy.

Whatever serenity that might come to him is snatched away by the feeling of eyes upon him, an amorphous stranger watches him in profile.

Changbin takes a half-step back from the shrine. His feet trample upon brightly colored autumn leaves in marigold, vermilion and persimmon orange. His gaze, rises slowly, and steadily to meet the stranger’s.

It can’t be.

Who else but him would it be?

Chan, he kissed the crown of his head tenderly as he thought that Changbin slept. That’s the last time he saw him; that was four days ago.

The first time he’s seen Chan in almost eight years is  _ right now _ , and it’s odd. So long were the details of  _ this Chan  _ so sharp and so clear in his mind when he closed his eyes. How quickly they became fuzzy when he met another version of Chan at the coffee shop.

Whether it is the man who stands before him now, broad shoulders and compact muscle. Or the boy who wears shirts several sizes too large, and was too embarrassed to look him in the eye when he touched him, it’s unmistakable. His smile a delicate mixture of embarrassment and coquettish, his eyes sparkling, transfixed upon him as if he were the only person in the world. Identical.

Fresh wounds are rubbed with salt.

Old wounds are torn open.

Realization knots in his stomach heavy and sour. He can tell by the expression on Chan’s face that sadness edges out surprise at seeing him here in this place. He’s just gone through it too. Something brand new and something so deeply buried in the past.

Chan approaches him slowly, stands upon the tips of his toes, and reaches upward.

It’s only then that Changbin notices the icon key chain of the Virgin. It’s still hanging up on the nail that he placed it upon years ago. It’s only been hanging there for a few days.

Chan grabs the keychain, holds it in one hand, and grabs Changbin’s hand with the other. He presses the smooth piece of lacquer into the palm of his hand and smiles at him. Better than the sun, better than a blanket fresh from the drier, Chan’s smile makes him feel so warm.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

The silence between them is vast, and in that vastness they speak volumes to one another.

It’s Chan that speaks first. It’s always Chan that sets the pace. Gives him permission and lets him know that what he’s feeling is okay. “You remind me of someone.”

They’re still holding hands. Through two thick cotton gloves, and a piece of lacquer sandwiched in between, they’re still holding hands. “You remind me of someone too.”

It’s Changbin who pulls away first, pocketing the lacquer. He pulls off one of his gloves, then the other, and then he’s tugging at Chan’s too. It’s always like that when he’s with other people. He’s so quick to pull back, but just for the purpose of getting closer.

It’s only ever been Chan that’s understood that. 

Chan lets him peel away his gloves, turning the cloth fingers of his gloves inside out. Lacing their fingers together, he stares at their linked hands and squeezes tightly.

He can’t help but remember a time when Chan told him to squeeze his hand hard if he was in pain.

Changbin squeezes back, because he’s in pain right now in this very moment.

“How many times? How many times are we gonna do this Chan?” He can feel it in the corner of eyes, and taste the faint taste of salt in his mouth. Tears, like the words that come from his mouth, pour out and streak his face. “Like what if, what if we’re out there somewhere right now. What if I’m like 32 and you’re like 43?” And he sounds so fucking stupid right now. “Or what if, thirty years from now I’m a silver fox and you’re my twenty year old pool boy?” Hot breath mists in the air as he speaks. “Why the fuck didn’t you stop me? Why the fuck didn’t I stop you?” 

Chan wipes the tears from his face as they stream down, first with the pads of his thumb, and then the sleeves of his jacket. It doesn’t do much good, because the tears don’t stop coming. “First of all, I think I’d be your pool boy right now. I bet it pays good.”

Changbin laughs, and he can feel a snot bubble break underneath his nose. Fuck.

“We know what happens to us in the past Changbin. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.” Chan bites his lip before he speaks. “But, I think we can try to do it better. Maybe...Maybe get it right this time.”

“So, at least one more time?” Changbin asks. 

Changbin responds, “yeah. I mean I want to, one more time.” 

Chan asks him like he’s not still sobbing. Like he doesn’t have snot oozing out of his nose. Asks like he’s just extracted the beeswax lip balm from his pocket and put some on. “Can I kiss you Changbin?”

Changbin makes a truly awful snorting sound, deep in the back of his nose and throat. Hastily wipes the snot from his nose with the cuff of his coat sleeve. “Of course,” and then adds quickly, “sappy bastard.”

Chan pulls him into a close, crushing embrace. Instead of kissing him full on the mouth as he expected, Chan cups the nape of his neck with the palm of his hands and draws him closer kissing his forehead with a tenderness that only Chan can treat him with.

One more time. 


End file.
